Congress will move legislation this year providing up to $15 billion to build a wall along the Mexican boundary, Republican leaders said Thursday. But they would not say how they would prevent the massive project from adding to federal deficits.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters at a GOP strategy retreat that they were planning legislation providing $12 billion to $15 billion for constructing the wall, one of President Donald Trump’s chief goals. Ryan said the goal is to complete that and other major bills in 2017, but the leaders offered no details on how the wall would be paid for, saying they would wait until the Trump administration proposes legislation.

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Trump has repeatedly said Mexico will pay for the wall, but Mexican leaders oppose it and have said they won’t finance it.

He doubled down on that rhetoric Thursday, even while acknowledging that a planned meeting with the president of Mexico was cancelled.

“It is time that the American people had a president fighting as hard for its citizens as other countries do for theirs, and that’s exactly what I am going to do for you,” Trump said, in remarks to Republicans that focused on bringing the government back to the people.

Congress will pay for “the construction of the physical barrier on the border,” Ryan said.

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